Pirates Fall at Tulsa 91-78
Curran Scott scored 23 points to go along with 19 from Martins Igbanu and 17 from Jeriah Horne to lead Tulsa to a 91-78 win over ECU on senior day Sunday afternoon in Reynolds Center.
Tulsa took a nine point halftime lead and expanded it in the second half despite 20 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds from Isaac Fleming, 18 from Shawn Williams, 15 from Seth LeDay and ten points and ten boards from Jayden Gardner who started off slow but managed to put together a double-double on Sunday.
The Pirates jumped out to an early 7-2 lead on a pair of Seth LeDay baskets including a monstrous baseline dunk along with a K.J. Davis three-point bomb. But two Curran Scott layups for Tulsa tightened the game back up.
Tulsa then took their first lead of the game eight minutes into the contest on a pair of Darien Jackson drives that put the Golden Hurricane out front 14-13.
Curan Scott’s third drive to the rim of the first half for a three-point play and Horne’s three-point jumper grew the Tulsa lead to seven at 28-22.
A pair of DeShaun Wade treys along with baskets from Shawn Williams and Isaac Fleming got ECU back to within one at 33-32 with three minutes left in the half. But Scott’s seventeenth point of the half and a Horne jumper late in the period helped the Tulsa lead balloon to nine at 46-36 at halftime.
“Their seniors played with some pride. Obviously the way Horne got out there and shot the ball. He had a bunch of pick and pop deals and we helped off the wings a few times, but I thought the big stretch was when we cut it to 33-32 in the first half,” said ECU head coach Joe Dooley, “We talked about getting back on shooters and we gave them back to back threes.”
Seth LeDay and Isaac Fleming both scored ten in the first half to lead ECU but Jayden Gardner was limited to just two points on one of seven shooting in the first twenty minutes.
Tulsa’s lead was still at ten at 60-50 with 14:13 to play in the game. Three minutes later, it grew to fifteen on an Igbanu basket and the Golden Hurricane cruised the rest of the way for a thirteen point victory.
“In the second half, we got it back to nine and then we give up a three point play. We could never get the final stop to wrap one up to make another run. We didn’t turn it over and we shot the ball decently," Dooley said, "We score 78 points on the road and you get beat.”
Tulsa hit 59.3 percent from the floor to just 44.4 for ECU. The Golden Hurricane got to the charity stripe 24 times, hitting 17 of them to just ten attempts for ECU, connecting on seven.
The Pirates only turned the basketball over seven times in the contest to twelve for Tulsa, but the Pirates were not able to capitalize on enough to make a significant difference in the contest.
ECU next travels to Wichita State for a Wednesday night matchup that is slated for 9 o’clock at Charles Koch Arena.
